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Las Vegas, Nevada - A former Internal Revenue Service (IRS) employee and former attorney was sentenced Tuesday to 32 months in prison in Las Vegas, for tax evasion and obstructing the IRS, announced Principal Deputy Assistant Attorney General Richard E. Zuckerman of the Justice Department’s Tax Division and U.S. Attorney Nicholas Trutanich for the District of Nevada.

In May 2019, a jury convicted Craig Orrock, 72, of Salt Lake City, Utah, of evading the payment of federal income taxes and obstructing IRS efforts to collect those taxes. Evidence at trial showed that Orrock filed tax returns for the years 1993 through 2015, but did not pay the income taxes reported as due on those returns. Orrock attempted to prevent the IRS from collecting the reported income taxes by using entities, bank accounts, and trusts in other names to hide his income and assets from IRS collection officers, filing frivolous bankruptcy petitions, and filing an offer-in-compromise falsely representing to the IRS that he had virtually no assets. For example, Orrock used an entity known as Arville Properties LLC to conceal from the IRS his ownership of real property that he sold in 2007 for $1.5 million. In all, Orrock evaded the payment of over $500,000 in federal income taxes.

In addition to the term of imprisonment, Orrock was ordered to pay $923,666.73 in restitution and to serve three years of supervised release.

Principal Deputy Assistant Attorney General Zuckerman and U.S. Attorney Trutanich commended special agents of IRS-Criminal Investigation, who conducted the investigation, and Tax Division Trial Attorney Erin S. Mellen and Assistant U.S. Attorney Patrick Burns, who prosecuted the case.